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Don't settle for an inferior brew! The java at Starbucks will perk you right up.
At Starbucks, you can enjoy healthy and gluten-free eats.
The patio tables outside of Starbucks are the perfect spot for a summer meal.
Large groups will appreciate Starbucks for its ability to seat them quickly.
Check email, shop online, or get the latest game scores on Starbucks' free wifi.
Dining out isn't your only option here — pickup is available, too.
Free parking is always available just seconds away from Starbucks.
At Starbucks, bikers can lock their bikes safely outside.
With tabs typically staying under $15, your wallet (and your stomach) will be happy with a trip to Starbucks.
You can stop by at almost any time, since Starbucks offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Named after a famous player of the traditional uilleann pipes, The Kerry Piper honors the tastes and history of the Emerald Isle by serving authentic Irish eats in a pub steeped in classic decor. Natural sunlight illuminates the earthen walls and richly stained wood that fills the dining room, where live performers play music throughout the week. Meanwhile, the aromas of freshly cooked shepherd’s pie, fish 'n' chips, and corned beef fill the air, transporting patrons across the Atlantic along with big-screen LCD TVs just like the ones that filled Ireland’s ancient castles.

Mark's On 66 straddles the border of two distinct culinary philosophies, sating rumbling stomachs with a menu of timeless Tex-Mex standards while entertaining eyes and ears with sports-bar-style dartboards, TVs, and games. Overstuffed burritos and steamy fajitas intermingle with American-inspired burgers molded from quality beef and steak. Complimentary WiFi and matches on the in-house Wii add to an ambiance often tinged with upbeat notes and perfectly in-pitch meal orders sung by live musicians.

Stats Bar & Grill is a rare creation: a bar that's as serious about beer as it is about sports. Its beer menu takes up six menu pages, beer flights, 16 taps, and 35 bottles?plenty of room for both Budweiser and beloved craft beers such as Two Brothers' Cane & Ebel and Founder's All Day IPA. They've even included some hidden gems, such as Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale.
On the food menu, too, you can go basic or a little whimsical. Cabo San Lucas egg rolls, for example, reimagine the Chinese food staple as a kind of miniature chimichanga. You can get your fries topped with feta or truffle oil and your burger stuffed with bacon?or sink your teeth into the comfort of their classic counterparts or some three-cheese mac and cheese, which also appear on a kids' menu "in case you couldn't get a babysitter," as Stats puts it. Meanwhile, diners can turn to the TVs to keep an eye on the Bears, Sox, Cubs, Blackhawks, or all four in the event that Chicago elects a sports-hating mayor they all need to team up against.

“If these walls could talk, they’d have a lot to say.”
That’s Ryan, the Gold Star bartender. He flashed an impish look when I asked about the ghosts in his place of employment. These days, most newcomers to Gold Star stumble in to worship at the barstool of Nelson Algren, the working-class novelist who reveled in the grit and glitz of Polish Broadway. Ryan was used to speculating about Algren’s love affairs and drinking habits, but tonight, my search was more supernatural in scope.
Gold Star Bar: Grisly Legends and a Woman in Green
It wasn’t Algren’s ghost I was looking for. In the 1950s, the 1700 block of Division Street was the shimmering brooch of Polish Broadway, a string of speakeasies-turned-polka-bars that smacked of sin and opulence. Gold Star Bar stood at the center of it all, its vertical neon sign a beacon to the lost souls of Wicker Park.
As legend has it, a few of these souls were to remain lost eternally. The first belongs to one of Algren’s contemporaries, a man who attempted to rob the bar but was shot and killed by the bartender on duty. Between sips of cheap Old Style, I asked Ryan if he knew anything about this. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “The same Polish woman owned this bar for nearly 75 years, and she essentially ran a brothel upstairs.” He lowered his voice. “A lot went on up there.”
One man, Ryan told me, had died in the upstairs apartment and stayed there for a week before an unlucky bartender discovered his body. A young girl working at the brothel had been set on fire and killed in her bedroom, the motive unknown. And then there’s the “Woman in Green.” Not much is known about this apparition, other than the fact that multiple people have reported seeing her over the years.
When it comes to ghosts, I’m cursed with skepticism. To borrow a phrase from Agent Fox Mulder, I want to believe, but logic seems always to get in the way. Even so, there’s something undeniably logical about the ghosts that supposedly haunt bars and hotels. Both establishments exist in a kind of between-world, a place that people pass through on the way to the more permanent fixtures of home and work.
Logic (I’m stuck on this hopeless word) would dictate that Gold Star, having served as bar and hotel over the years, is especially ripe ground for haunting. The chill on the back of my neck, the peeling yellow paint on the walls, and the flickering signage behind the bar only confirmed this. I had seen enough, and I was ready to continue my hunt at another allegedly haunted bar.
Bucktown Pub: The Specter of a Former Owner
Making my way north on a too-quiet stretch of Ashland, I played Ryan’s stories back in my head and couldn’t help but feel a bit rattled. This feeling dissipated when I arrived at Bucktown Pub. Unlike the nearly empty Gold Star Bar, the pub didn’t fit the profile of a place that’s supposedly haunted. A friendly bartender named Willie poured me a draft as the jukebox strained to compete with the white noise of chatter. Other whimsical touches, such as a goat head adorned with a leather-daddy hat, made me seriously question my decision to hunt for ghosts here.
That all changed when I called Willie over and asked him the same question I had posed to Ryan a few hours earlier. Like Ryan, he seemed excited rather than put-off by the strange inquiry. “Sometimes, when I’m closing the bar at night, I feel this presence standing behind me. It’s hard to explain.” This was good stuff, so I pressed him a bit. “Nobody likes to close the bar. There’s this door”—he pointed to a door just behind the bar—“that will sometimes just slam for no reason.”
The door-slammer in question is likely former owner Wally, who shot himself in the head in the upstairs bedroom. This grisly incident took place in 1986, and the bar remained empty for a number of years until current owner Krystine Palmer reopened and completely remodeled it. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to get rid of Wally’s ghost.
As unpleasant a man in death as he was in life, Wally is known for dropping beer signs on employees, throwing candles across the room, and generally acting like a sociopath. A commemorative plaque outside the bar bears his name, but this apparently hasn’t been enough to cool his temper in the afterlife.
Not everybody returns Wally’s hatred. Willie actually says he’s grateful for the ghost, as he was first hired to make sure the GM wasn’t alone when she closed up at night. I was preparing to close my own night, disappointed in having failed to witness anything that I could definitively say was supernatural. As I was settling my bill and preparing to leave, I heard a familiar refrain: “Tamales! Tamales! Tamales!”
Sometimes, usually at a bar and usually long past bedtime, people are prone to strange and unsettling revelations. As I stared at the ubiquitous Tamale Guy, making his rounds with a cooler the color of fresh blood, I knew that I had seen my first ghost.
Do you know of any legitimately haunted bars in Chicago? Email the details to collin@groupon.com, and I’ll investigate.